


The Rhythm of the Earth

by SaintHeretical



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Elemental Magic, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gardens & Gardening, Plantbending, Post-Apocalypse, Virgin Kylo Ren, broken stuff, gratuitous descriptions of smells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 06:59:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13676622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintHeretical/pseuds/SaintHeretical
Summary: In a future scarred by crumbling buildings and rusted machines, Rey tries to use her magic to coax new life out of the tired, dusty soil. Too bad she's only one half of the solution, for there can be no growth without rot, and no Life without Death.an elemental magic AU written for the More than Love: RFFA Valentines Fic Exchange 2018





	The Rhythm of the Earth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosewitches](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosewitches/gifts).



> Okay, this started off as a magicAU and then sprawled into something crazy and weird and not quite modern, but I hope you still enjoy it, rosewitches! Thank you for the awesome prompts!

_ A sharp cry pierced the darkness. _

_ Seconds later, another deeper moan joined it. _

_ Amidst the rubble and debris, a young father pulled his infant daughter from between the loins of her exhausted mother. The Earth sang around them, plants and animals crowding to view the blessing that would one day give new life to them all. _

_ But the day soured soon after. Drained from the birth, the mother slumped over, half dead with exertion. She wouldn’t rise for almost a month, and was never the same after. The father tried his best, but the unrelenting needs of any young babe are enough to drive a man to madness. _

_ And this babe in particular was more demanding than most. _

_ From the moment her eyes opened, the universe shifted around her. The sun always seemed to shine on her face, and the moon presided over her slumbering body. The father had heard of such a thing, but only barely; raw magic was so new in this world still sick with machines, and how could any father think of his tiny daughter as anything more than small, helpless, vulnerable? _

_ All things considered, they held on for a while. The father worked hard to provide her with small trinkets, toys to keep her company, while her mother sang songs and told stories in a soft, lilting voice. But the girl’s curiosity was selfish and her thirst for knowledge was unquenchable. She heard birdsong, and suddenly a flock of sparrows rushed the house, swirling around her in appeasing droves. She saw a spider, and instantly the specimen would grow, expanding to monstrous size while the girl just laughed.  _

_ The worst were the plants. They came in the night as she slept, weaving through cracks in the foundation to twine themselves around her bed. Her parents would wake to find her cradled in the branches of an ancient oak, still fast asleep, while their walls laid in ruins around her.  _

_ “Elemental,” their friends would breathe, clutching their own children close. “Wild, untamed...dangerous.” _

_ Every day they would rebuild. The father would gather crumbling stones, the mother would scavenge materials from old, sagging towers, and together they attempted to create something new. And every day, something would crack through the walls they built around themselves and destroy any chance they had at progress. _

_ She was six when they lost all hope. Their community abandoned them; their own homes now at risk from the girl’s rambunctious dreams and their children endangered by her animal companions. So her father and mother, desperate and tired, packed up what little they had and travelled halfway across the country until they found the coast, peppered with decaying giants of a society past.  _

_ It was in the shadows of these giants that they found the man many whispered of. He was old, yes, older than the legends told, but still able to train a girl like hers.  _

_ Or at least contain the damage. _

_ Either way, it was at this wizened hermit’s home that they left their young daughter, glimpses over shoulders the only lasting memory she would have before being taken in by the craggy, decaying- _

“Oh stop!” Rey wrinkles her nose and playfully slaps Luke on the shoulder. “You say that every time!”

He stops mid-speech and adopts an exaggerated look of offense. “And is it wrong?” he responds, his voice gravelly. “I  _ am _ quite old.”

“No, you’re not,” she protests, then adds, “At least you weren’t _ then _ .”

“True.” Waving his hand, he continues. “Well, you know the rest of the story anyways. They left you with the crotchety old wizard who, despite his better judgement, took you in and raised you to the best of his abilities, blah, blah, blah. The end.”

“You missed the best part!” She looks away, embarrassed, before blurting out, “What happened that morning, when you found me.”

“Ah yes.”

_ \- Woken by the commotion outside of his hut, the old bag of bones opened his door to the morning light. And there he saw her, arms crossed, sunshine glinting off of the tear tracks down her cheeks like rays of pure light. _

_ “Who are you?” he asked, his voice still rough from sleep. _

_ Raising her head to face him, she spat out, “I’m no one.” _

_ “Well that won’t do.” He stared up at the new morning sun that seemed so focused on her young face. “How about I call you Rey?” _

“- and you did.” Rey smiles, tears glinting in her eyes. “Thank you for telling it again, Luke.”

“It’s my pleasure, every year.” He takes another bite of cake. “Happy Birthday Rey.”

It’s not her actual birthday, of course. That information, along with her original name and lineage, was lost the moment her parents walked away, never to be seen or heard from again. Instead, today is the thirteenth anniversary of the morning that Luke found this precocious, scared, but inquisitive girl on his doorstep.

Rey is wistful now, surveying the battered windows and art plastered walls that she calls home. She always gets like this after he recounts the story. He used to think she was focusing, trying to remember the faces of her parents or the old home she used to live in. But now he knows better, knows that her family is only a fraction of the equation, that her soul yearns to reclaim the power that once coursed through her veins, the power  _ he  _ taught her to suppress, just as he had his own.

Sure enough, her next question comes with a bite of accusation. “You know, I will be forever in your debt, right?”

“Not at all R-”

“-but why couldn’t I have been allowed to keep some of the magic? Surely it would have come in handy. I mean, look at how Poe and Maz and the others struggle with raising enough crops every summer. A small touch of magic could really help.”

Luke gives her a sad smile. “Of course it could. But the thing you have to remember is that there’s no such thing as a ‘small touch’ of magic. It’s either flowing through your entire being, or it isn’t. Your magic was hurting those around you, Rey. It was wild and unchecked. What choice did I have?”

“You had no choice,” she sighs, sliding her fork across her empty plate. “I know that. It just seems so, so-”

“Magical?” He grins cheekily. “Yes, that.”

She shoots him a petulant look that melts into resignation. “I know, I know. I wasn’t there, I don’t know what it was like or how bad it got, but I just-”

She looks out the window at the crumbling skyscrapers and layers upon layers of dead, cracked pavement. To the left, the buildings melt into the vast forest that’s sprung up from the rubble, full of rotting trees and garbage filled sinkholes. The abandoned buildings speak to a grander, more exciting time of industry, while the now-grey skies reflect the lifelessness now, a world devoid of magic.

“What did it feel like?” she whispers. “What did the magic feel like?”

Luke sighs. “It was different for everyone.”

“But what was it like for you?” she presses leaning forward, her elbows planted on the dining room table. “You never talk about it.”

His eyes go glassy, and for a second she can almost taste a metallic tang in the air. 

“It was different for everyone,” he repeats. “For me- my magic allowed me to commune with the machines. Any being that had a processor instead of a heart, I could touch them and help them flourish. Mighty beasts of metal,  _ airplanes  _ we called them, flew through the air, and I could guide them with a wave of my hand. I worked as a pilot, flying those machines, but soon it wasn’t enough.”

Luke’s voice grows louder, stronger. “I moved onto the computer innards of what we called the  _ internet _ . I connected to servers, to routers, to fibre optic cables strung around the world a hundred times. I could see  _ everything _ , and I thought I could know everything.” He sighs. “That was my folly.”

Rey’s seen the crumbling carcasses of the old world. She’s even crawled through the bowels of massive old machines, searching for wood or fabric or metal to salvage. Often she wonders what they looked like back when the cities were alive with technology, but to know that Luke, this slouching old man in front her, was capable of controlling it all? It inspires far more questions than it answers. 

“I don’t really understand,” she admits. “I’ve never-”

“Could you start the tea?”

It’s not a question. Rey tilts her head to the side. “O-okay.”

Frowning, she pulls her chair back and fetches the kettle from it’s hook over the sink. Out of habit, she checks the cistern level before turning the tap to fill the kettle with water. Once it’s full, she closes the tap and places the kettle on the burner. She turns the knob to light the gas, and soon enough, the kettle is engulfed in a brilliant blue flame.

Wiping her hands on the dishcloth, she makes her way back to the dining table. Luke nods once, twice. “Easy, wasn’t it?”

“Filling the kettle?” Rey raises an eyebrow. “Yes, yes it was quite easy.”

“Making tea,” he responds, then adds. “But it used to be easier. I used to get fresh water from my tap, guided to my house through pipes that were controlled by a central water supply. My kettle used to be electric; I would just fill it up and plug it in, and in minutes my water would be boiling. No stove or gas needed.”

“But how does that-”

“How does that relate? To my story? It was everything, Rey! I had access to everything. I read in binary and decoded the world’s secrets. I could control everything from my toaster to the security systems in the world’s most top secret facilities. I felt like a god… I _was_ a god...but I couldn’t save everything, or everyone.”

His shoulders slump. “When the central government set off the EMPs, I felt the magic drain from my veins. I had tried to fix everything, everyone, but all I was left with was millions of soulless husks taking up space around me. It was  _ power _ like no one else had ever experienced, and it was snuffed out.”

The question lingers on her tongue, begging to be asked. “Did the government decide to destroy the machines because-?”

It dies on her lips when she sees a spark, a  _ real _ , live spark flash from his eyes. “What do  _ you  _ think?” he breathes. 

*

Weeding is by far the worst part of cultivating crops. The weeds are such stubborn, thorny little bastards who somehow worm their roots into the sad, dusty soil enough that Rey has to grit her teeth and tug each one out with a mighty groan. 

Finn is working next to her, easing his trowel around one of the dandelions. “Do you think they’ll outlive us?” he asks, gesturing to the stubborn yellow blossom. “I mean, this one has roots three feet into solid concrete. It sure seems like it.”

“Probably,” Rey says, wiping a trickle of sweat from her brow. “They’ve probably been here since long before us, so it makes sense that they’ll be here long after we die.”

“Maz says we can eat the little ones.” His face twists into a look of disgust. “Sounds disgusting, and I don’t even think I’ve ever  _ seen _ a little one before.”

She looks forlornly at the sad bean sprout planted in their garden bed. “The way things are going, we may not have a choice.”

_ Stupid dandelion and its strong roots. Stupid tiny bean plant that will probably die before it reaches maturity.  _

She feels stupid, and has felt stupid ever since last night. Even though she hears the story every year, and hears other stories of Luke and his past, it still feels fantastical and fake- too good to be true. When she was a child, she used to wave her hands at the feeble stalks in their garden, hoping to see a response, only to be disappointed at their inaction. And now she’s grown, her childlike faith faded to the cynicism of a blooming young adult.

Still, she tries again. She has to. Taking in a deep breath, she focuses on a tiny bean sprout, only four inches tall. It stands, smooth green head lifted high, amidst the greyish soil they attempt to cultivate. Raising her hand, she focuses her energy into the veins of the stalk and tries to  _ feel _ its lifeforce. 

She pictures its roots, like tiny hairs, fighting against the oppressively dry earth, fighting for the nutrients it desperately needs. She imagines the leaves, soaking in the sunlight that manages to filter through the smog. Eyes closed, she focuses on the the tips of her fingers and pictures her own life force leaving her, and entering this tiny, defenseless plant.

Her skin tingles, and a shiver runs down her spine.  _ It’s happening, I can’t believe it’s happening- _

She opens her eyes, and the sprout remains, unchanged.

Frowning, she folds her arms and huffs quietly.  _ Stupid bean. _

_ Rey? _

“Hello?” 

Finn shifts a couple of feet away. “Hello?” he answers.

“Did you call my name?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

_ Rey? _

It sounds like a man’s voice, only thin and far away. “It must be Poe,” she mutters under her breath, and stands up straight, dropping her tools on the ground. “I’ll be right back.”

_ Rey? _

Poe’s nowhere to be seen amidst the neighbors gathered at the garden plots. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she looks off into the distance at the collection of huts just past the pumpkin patch.  _ Maybe someone is calling me from there _ ?

The voice gets closer with every step towards the hut. Now she doesn’t just hear her name, but also whispers as well, muttering imperceptible things in the edge of her range of hearing. It’s slightly unnerving, but the constant chant of her name draws her closer like a moth to the flame.

_ Rey? _

She pauses in front of the hut belonging to Maz, one of the oldest and most respected women in their community. Just to be sure, Rey knocks softly on the wood hewn door to be polite. When there’s no response, she takes in a gulp of air, and pushes it open.

Maz’s living room is just as it’s always been, a collection of treasures and antiques she’s collected since time immemorial, only this time Rey feels a strange tug in her belly, a tug the drives her closer and closer to an ebony bookcase against the far wall. On it sits a box, roughly the size of a loaf of bread, buckled but unlocked. She’s seen this box every time she’s visited Maz, but she’s never felt the irresistible urge to open it. Not until now.

With shaking hands, she retrieves the box from its spot and places it on her lap. The latch is made of solid brass, heavy in her hand, and it squeaks obnoxiously when she flips it open. Inside the box is a-a  _ stick _ of some sort, honey coloured wood polished with some minor scuffs around the bottom. It would be unremarkable if not for the pulsating blue gem housed in its core. 

Then she touches it, and her entire world flips upside down.

_ A mass of writhing tentacles made of shining metal, pulling at her arms as she runs across the forest... _

_ A man’s voice, screaming. Her name? Something else? Just a yell of anguish? _

_ Shining metal crumbles into fragments and dust, the tang of rusted iron thick in the air. A man, hunched and clutching a silver-domed figure that stands, motionless, as chunks of machine fall from the sky... _

_ Her hands, small and childlike, scrambling to latch on to a larger one. “Please, don’t leave me,” she hears in a voice not unlike her own as shadowy bodies drift away. Her limbs are are unnaturally heavy...maybe she should just take a nap in front of this door, and wait for it to open? _

_ A moth eaten robe made of blackest wool, thrown across the shoulders of a man twice her size. His skin is the colour of cream, and his eyes pierce her very soul. The air around them is thick and humid, and her lungs struggle to take in every shuddering breath. “Finally,” he breathes, and reaches out his hand… _

Her back hits Maz’s floor with a heavy thump. The box clatters away into a corner, forgotten, but the strange stick remains clutched in her grip. Rey gasps, her eyes fluttering open to rest on the swirled plaster ceiling. 

“So you found it.”

Craning her head, she spots Maz’s slippered feet. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to, I was-”

“Hush.” Maz crouches down next to her. Her massive glasses normally magnify her eyes an extreme amount; at this distance the effect is positively alarming. “It called to you. I know it did. That is no fault of yours.”

Wincing, Rey hoists herself up to a seated position on Maz’s floor. She tosses the stick onto the coffee table. “What  _ is _ that?”

“Oh Rey. You already know, don’t you?”

She does, she  _ thinks _ she does, but the word seems silly, too foreign to actually speak aloud. “I-I, no I don’t, sorry.”

“It’s a wand.” Maz pushes the stick towards her with a bony finger. “It was Luke’s first wand, and his father’s before him. And now it calls to you.”

“A wand? For magic?” Rey shakes her head. “N-no, I can’t. I can’t do magic anymore. No one can.”

“Is that what  _ he _ told you?” Maz lets out a raspy chuckle. “That old fool needs to move on, and not let his past mistakes limit your future. Take it.”

Rey recoils. “N-no, I can’t. What I saw-”

“What you saw is a sign. A sign that you’re meant to have it. Take the wand Rey.” Maz picks it up and drops it into Rey’s lap. “Take the wand and embrace your destiny.” 

*

She would have bet her life that Luke would be mad, frustrated, would chastise her. Instead, when he sees her walk back home with the wand in her hand, he just rolls his eyes and sulks back into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

“It called to me!” she insists, but all she hears is a snort in response. 

She waits until the dark of night before she pulls it out again and examines it. On the surface, it appears to be a basic stick, a slightly more polished than average dowel that one may use to hold a kitchen towel or to roll out pastry. It tapers gently to a blunted tip, and the surface is mostly free of detail except for a few carvings in a language she’s never seen before. 

The bottom of the wand holds the crystal in an intricately carved housing, which makes it look as though the wood itself grew around the stone. In the dark, the crystal’s glow is even more apparent, as it envelops Rey’s entire bedroom in a bright blue hue. 

Grasping her hand around the crystal, she hold the wand in front of her and tries to reach out, just as she had done in the morning. Nothing happens, but she’s not discourages quite yet. She grabs her sweater from a hook on her door and steals outside, careful to close the main door silently behind her. 

The garden patch is faintly illuminated by a swarm of fireflies dancing around the fledgling plants. She finds the bean sprout from before and crouches down next to it, wand in hand. With all of her might, she focuses on the tiny plant, imagining every cell in its young, fragile body. She focuses harder, reaches out with her mind, and listens.

_ help me. _

Her breath catches in her throat. “Hello?” she hisses. “Was that you?”

The voice is lower than she was expecting for a bean plant, but there’s no other possible origin for it. She didn’t hear the plea with her ears; she heard it with her  _ mind _ . 

“Let me help you,” she whispers. 

The crystal pulsates with warmth. Suddenly, she  _ knows _ what to do, knows how to make this fledgling plant grow. She sees the roots now, not just in her imagination, but in her mind’s eye. She sees them struggling to find nutrients, struggling against the flakes of metal and chips of rock in the soil.

_ It’s okay _ she thinks.  _ You can do it. Just grow. _

And grow it does. Before her eyes, she sees the bean sprout unfurl its leaves and let out tendrils of vine. New growth shoots out at a wildly accelerated speed, and soon the plant is mature enough to produce its first blossom. She can barely make out its pinkish petals, but even the outline of them is enough to bring tears to her eyes. 

“We did it,” she whispers to the plant. She strokes one of its newly grown leaves with pride. “You grew.”

_ you did it. _

She looks up. This time, it’s more apparent that it voice isn’t actually coming from the little plant. Instead, her eye is drawn to the line of pine trees at the edge of her community, the ones that signify the beginning of the forest. 

There’s a rustle of movement in the trees, and she flinches. Every instinct in her body screams at her to run back to the hut, to slam the door and jam a door under the knob. Contrary to that, her legs spring into action and, instead of running to safety, she finds herself slowly walking towards the forbidden forest. 

She can’t deny that its lush depths have tempted her from time to time. After all, everything forbidden has a layer of allure to it, just by the very nature of being off limits. But the forest, in all its looming majesty, now seems to be drawing her soul like a magnet, spurred on by the whispers that have taken up residence in the back of her mind. 

Something dark glitters in the trees, sparkling back from the deep dark depths, and she freezes. 

“Rey?”

She jumps. Cold, weathered hands grip her arm to keep her steady, and a rush of cold runs up her spine.

“L-leia?” Rey stammers. Her eyes flicker back to the trees, but the glittering has disappeared. 

Luke’s sister tugs her away from the forest for a few paces, far enough that the voices fade from her head. She’s in a long, ratty bathrobe, clearly fresh from bed, and appears to be a bit grumpy at being disturbed. “Don’t tell me you were thinking of wandering into the forest in the middle of the night,” she chastises in her soft, gravelly voice.

“Alright then. I won’t” Rey attempts to joke, but it falls flat. 

“This isn’t funny. The darkness is no joking matter.” Leia’s eyes are haunted pools in the moonlight. “The forest has lured people before, never to be heard from again. My son-”

Her voice catches. 

Rey’s heart thumps painfully in her chest. “I never knew you had a son.”

“I did.” She tugs Rey back towards the huts. “Ask Luke one day, and maybe he’ll tell you about him. Now come back to bed.”

Rey wants to protest, but suddenly finds that she _can’t._ _Why argue?_ her mind wonders. _Why not just go to bed?_

Leia’s fingers dig into the meat of her forearm with slightly more force than necessary. “Are you coming?” Her dark eyes sparkle in the moonlight. 

_ don’t trust her. she’s manipulating you. it’s what she always does. _

Rey frowns and gives her head a shake. “O-of course.” Bed sounds nice now, actually  _ more _ than nice. It sounds like the greatest idea in the entire world.

That night, Rey’s dreams are full of rot and decay, and glittering eyes beckoning from tree lined depths. She’s running from something, and her toes keep getting caught in rocks and debris which cuts the soles of her feet and leave them stinging. Heart pounding, she keeps running farther and farther away from whatever is pursuing her until she reaches a wall made up of thousands of reflective glass windows. She tries to climb it, but her fingers can’t find any purchase on the slippery surface, and whoever’s behind her is gaining and-

She wakes in a cold sweat just as the sun starts to graze the treetops.

“Wow,” she groans, throwing her head back against her pillow. “What did I eat last night?”

By the time she’s washed and fed and freshly dressed, the sun is already high in the sky and the tiny community has woken up for the day’s work. Trowel in hand, she traverses the rocky stretch of land that separates Luke’s place from the rest of the huts, careful to avoid slipping on the dew encrusted stones. 

A small crowd has gathered around the garden plot and she can hear and excited murmur from a couple of paces away. Once she reaches them, she calls out, “What’s going on?”

“Rey!” Finn waves her over to where he and Poe are standing. “Have you seen this?”

It’s the bean sprout,  _ her _ bean sprout, still as tall and proud as she left it last night. It contrasts with the other plants that are barely a few inches high and devoid of blossoms. 

She smiles. “Yeah. It’s great, isn’t it?”

“Great? It’s amazing!” Poe runs a shaking finger over one of the plant’s leaves. “I’ve never seen a plant sprout this quickly.”

“Rey was working on this plot just yesterday,” Finn explains. He turns to her. “Did you do something special to make it grow like this?”

The eyes of the crowd land on her, and she slouches. “Y-yeah, I guess so,” she stutters out. Crouching down, she pulls the wand out of her back pocket and grips it firmly in her hand. 

Leia’s voice calls out from somewhere in the crowd. “Where did you get that?”

“She got it from me,” Maz responds, her tuft of white hair just visible behind Poe’s elbow. “As for where I got it from, that’s a long story that I will share with you over some tea one day.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Rey sees Luke’s sullen form sulking in the background next to the squashes. Deliberately, she turns away from him and focuses on the crowd. “Last night, I channeled my magic through this wand, and made this plant grow.”

The excited murmur turns into a roar. Finn’s eyes go wide. “You can do  _ magic _ ? I thought it was just a myth!”

Grinning, she shakes her head. “No, not at all. Watch this.”

It’s easier this time to tap into the bottomless well within her. It’s as if touching the wand has unlocked this throbbing beast inside of her, one that craves to nurture and grow every living thing around her. She concentrates on a sprout about a foot from the first, and lets her energy flow into the tiny being.

But it resists. No, not resists...it  _ can’t  _ grow, not in the way she wants it to. Frustrated, she screws her eyes shut and concentrates harder, channelling more magic into the tiny plant until she hears the crowd gasp around her.

She opens her eyes and her heart sinks. The plant has grown, but into a gnarled, twisted, leggy mess of colourless leaves and woody vines. 

Finn crouches down next to her. He takes a leaf between his fingers and it crumbles into dust. “What happened?” he whispers. “It was amazing, but-but that’s not what you wanted to happen, right?”

“Of  _ course _ not!” Rey says, frustration evident in the furrow of her brow. The bystanders, suddenly awkward, dismiss themselves to their daily tasks, leaving her and Finn alone at the bean patch.

“It just didn’t want to grow,” she mumbles. “Well, not that...it wanted to grow, all things want to grow, but it just couldn’t manage it. The soil here doesn’t have enough nutrition to support the plants. So I pushed, and then  _ this  _ happened.”

Finn pokes the twisted sprout. “Well, it’s a start,” he says encouragingly. “And it’s still  _ amazing _ what you can do! Imagine the potential!”

“I have been,” she admits. “But what if this is all I can do?”

The thought lingers for the rest of the day. She abandons her wand in favour of the trowel, and spends the hours digging up weeds and responding to Finn’s good-natured chattiness with one word  answers. By supper time, most of her neighbours have retreated back to their homes, leaving just her and a couple of other stragglers around the campfire, roasting sausages and swapping stories. 

Struck with melancholy, Rey wanders away from the fire and back towards the garden plots. She can feel the wand in her pocket, digging into the muscle of her right thigh. With a sigh, she retrieves it an idly passes it back and forth between her left and right hand, transfixed by the glow of the crystal in the twilight. 

On a whim, she concentrates again, this time on a pathetic looking zucchini sprout under a foot in diameter. She manages to coax out another inch of stalk and a couple of wilted leaves before the plant screams out in hunger, and she retreats, chastened. 

_ beautiful  _

Her head whips around, searching for the source of the voice, but there’s no one there. Frantic she scans her surroundings for anything out of the ordinary, anything faintly  _ magical _ . Her gaze rests on the forest, and there her eyes meet the glitter in the darkness, again.

_ come to me _

There’s no Leia to stop her this time. Rey makes her way, step by step, to the edge of the trees, her wand still clutched in her right hand. She flinches when she steps into the forest, but the trees don’t tug at her like she imagined. Instead the bend, pliant and willing to accept her into their forbidden depths. 

The heady scent of rot is strong here, insulated by the thick, knotty trees and the layers upon layers of debris stacked on the forest floor. It’s not a wholly unpleasant smell, warm and musty and sticky, but it still makes her eyes water with its pungency.

The ground is spongy as well, a stark contrast to the dusty earth and unyielding concrete she’s used to. It’s relaxing in a way, like the earth is hugging her feet with every step she takes. As the trees thin, the ground solidifies until it just gives slightly under her weight. The air is a bit clearer here, but still fragrant with the aroma of wet soil and rotting wood.  

Abruptly, the forest breaks to reveal a large clearing, large enough to contain a ramshackle structure made of scavenged stones, complete with a smoke-spewing chimney. There’s a full deer that’s been butchered hanging from a rack next to the hut, and a small tower of rocks indicates that a well has been dug.

And directly in front of the house there stands a man. At least it  _ looks _ like a man. If not, it’s the most sunken, rotten stump of a tree she’s ever seen, a dark lump perched on a pile of soil. He stirs, and her doubts are assuaged once he unfolds himself from his crouch, tattered robes unfurling to reveal a tall, broad shouldered man with wild black hair and even darker glittering eyes.

_ I’ve seen this man before.  _

His stare lands on her, and he pauses. “It’s you,” he whispers, his voice as plush as the forest floor. “The girl I’ve heard so much about.”

“Who  _ are _ you?” Rey wonders. “And who’s told you about me?”

Her words are stark in the humid expanse. He tilts his head, as if confused, and responds, “The trees have told me about you, bright one. They’ve been telling me about you for over ten years. As for who I am...I assume that’s obvious.” He gestures to the crumbling pillars around his makeshift home. “I am Ozymandias. I am a spectre amidst decay. I am Death.”

Wrinkling her nose, she sputters, “What kind of a name is Ozymandias?”

His face falls. “Has Luke taught you nothing of the great literature of the past?” He throws his hands up in the air. “But of course he hasn’t. He’s probably squirreled you away and taught you nothing- nothing, aside from how to ruthlessly suppress the gifts you’ve been given.”

Her heart leaps into her throat, and she takes an excited step forward. “You know about magic?”

“Know about it?” His full lips curl into a smile. Reaching his arm forward, he points a finger at a stone a few feet in front of her. “My magic is my life,” he murmurs. With a flick of his wrist, the point of an ebony wand pokes out of his tattered sleeve. Enraptured, Rey watches the wand slide into his hand, the carved handle housing a blood red crystal slightly larger than her own. The crystal pulsates with power then, in the blink of an eye, the wand shoots a bolt of scarlet lightning at the stone, dissolving it in a puff of dust.

A jolt of- of  _ something _ runs through her veins. It’s as if the stone cried out for help the moment before it burst into nothingness. And now there’s nothing where it previously lay; just a void of existence that settles into the pit of her stomach.

“W-what did you do?” She stares up at the man, who has walked a few steps closer. She can see him more clearly now, see the purple bags under his eyes and the sallowness of his cheeks. The scent of wet earth clings to him like a fog. 

He shrugs. “That’s only a taste of what my magic can do.”

“B-but that rock, it was alive.”

A laugh. “If you could call it living. It’s sat there for the last three hundred years, being stepped on and eroded by countless windstorms and animals. What kind of an existence is that?”

“Who are  _ you _ to be the judge of that?” 

He steps even closer, enough that she can see the ring of tan around his pitch black pupils. “Why are you so concerned with defending the existence of a rock when there’s so many better things you could focus on?”

“Better things?” she spits, dashing forward to face him. Her chest heaves with anger. “How  _ dare _ you speak to me like you know me, like you know my life!”

“It’s not like that! I’ve just been waiting for so long!”

“Waiting?” Her face scrunches with confusion. “Waiting for what?”

“For someone else!” He turns away, anguish etched into the corners of his eyes. “For someone else like me.”

The howling night wind brushes past them, causing his tattered robe to flutter around his hunched shoulders. “I could teach you,” he says, softly. “I could show you how to master your magic enough to make the entire Earth bow to your will.”

“I don’t  _ want _ the Earth to bow to my will.” Her voice cracks. “I just want my garden to grow.”

“That’s why you need a teacher.” Turning back to face her, he extends a shaking hand. “Let me show you what your magic is truly capable of.”

“No!” Rey recoils, disgusted. “If you think magic is for destruction and control, then I want  _ nothing  _ to do with you!”

“Fine!” He yanks his hand back and takes in a couple of breaths, his chest heaving. The air vibrates around them, tense with magic. 

A tree branch snaps somewhere to her left, and Rey jumps. Another tree quivers, then gives a final shudder and melts into a pile of moist wood shavings and dry leaves. The crickets she didn’t even notice before have gone suspiciously silent, and the ground trembles ominously under her feet.

The crystal in her wand burns brighter under her fingers, tempting her with its potential. She shakes her head and pockets it, then turns back to the trees and runs. 

A guttural roar echoes behind her, but she doesn’t look back to investigate. She doesn’t stop running until she’s at the door of her hut, heart pounding and eyes wide. 

In her dreams, she’s greeted by outstretched arms and pale skin that smells of damp soil. Strong oak trees surround her, and the soles of her feet are rest on thick, fresh moss. Roughspun black wool, softened from years of use, rubs the tears from her cheeks and envelops her body in warmth. Sparks erupt from her fingertips, dancing around them like a swarm of multicoloured fireflies. 

_ We could be beautiful together _ the voice taunts  _ if only you were brave enough to try. _

*

“So...don’t be mad-”

Luke looks up from his morning tea, his eyebrows scrunched together into a single unit. “What have you done now?”

Rey tries to look offended and fails. “I know I’m not your favourite person right now, but please understand that I don’t  _ mean _ to get into trouble. Sometimes it just happens.”

Her weedling coaxes a roll of his eyes. “Spit it out, Rey.”

“Okay.” She takes a bite of her muffin, chews thoughtfully, then swallows, the pastry dry in her mouth. “So I went into the forest last night, like you told me not to… and there was a strange man there.”

She braces herself for his wrath. When nothing comes, she peeks up at him through her lashes, and is met with a twisted, half-smile. 

“So,” he muses. “You’ve met Ben.”

“Ben?” She wrinkles her nose. “He called himself something else. Ozzy- I don’t remember, it was quite long. I would have remembered if his name was Ben.”

“Ah, is it Ozymandias now? He has a history of calling himself many things. Ben, Kylo Ren, now Ozymandias...he thinks it’s what the wizards of old used to do, and I suppose he’s not wrong.” His eyes flick down to the wand still clenched in her hand. “My father changed his name, once he twisted his magic into something cruel and destructive. Something similar to Ben’s magic. Did he show you?”

The memory of the stone’s cry echoes through her head. “Yeah, he did. So are you saying this Ben- he twisted his magic too? Like your father?”

Luke’s face falls, and he slumps down against the dining table. “No, not quite as simple as that. My father, Anakin, his magic started off quite similar to yours. He could see the way things work and make them grow. Later, after he gave in to his fear and his doubts, his magic twisted into dark sorcery. As Darth Vader, he would steal the life of everything around himself, in order to grow more powerful.” He shakes his head. “Ben’s magic has always been that way. Ever since he was a boy.”

“Did you know him back then?”

“Know him?” Luke’s face sags, making him look even older than his already advanced age. “I’m his uncle.”

The pieces click together. “He’s Leia’s son. She mentioned him a few nights ago, when she told me to stay out of the forest. If he’s your family, why is he living by himself in a hut in the forest? Doesn’t she miss him?”

“Of course she misses him, and I miss him too. Dearly.” Luke finishes his tea, placing the mug down on the table with a satisfied sigh. “It was a mutual decision, Ben’s exile. He can’t control the destruction caused by his magic, and we both agreed it would be safer for him to live in the forest. This way, he can live freely and we- we can be  _ safe _ .”

*

She thinks of Ben as she brandishes her wand at some radish sprouts. She remembers the effortless way he summoned his magic, and the decisiveness of its action. The rock didn’t struggle against him; it simply disappeared as if it was pulled away to another dimension and Ben, he didn’t even flinch.

Determined, she stares at a furry radish sprout and commands it to grow. The plant shivers, but stubbornly remains the same size. Again she commands, waving the wand for emphasis, fluid magic ripping from her veins. This time, a couple of leggy leaves spurt from the plant’s centre, and it’s stalk shoots up two inches. 

_ good  _

“Nobody asked you,” she grumbles.

She joins her neighbours for lunch in the shadow of a crumbling building. Its walls once stood tall and metallic, dotted with glass scales that harnessed the sun’s power and used it to feed the machines. Now the building slowly decays into the ground around them, littering the soil with inert, grey dust.

Finn passes her a sandwich, which she bites into with glee. “How’s it going today?” he asks. “I saw you trying your magic again.”

“It’s better,” she responds through a mouthful of chicken and lettuce. “But still so much harder than B- than it should be.”

“I don’t really know how it should be. I’d never seen magic before.” He smiles at her, awe sparkling in his eyes. “But I think you’re doing a great job.”

She turns away, embarrassed. “Thanks. I-I have to try, at least.”

They fall into an amicable silence punctuated only by their chewing. Rey looks behind her at the buildings the once housed a great civilization. Her mind wanders back to Luke’s story of his magic, and of how he used to control the machines with his mind. Looking at the craggy, rusted shells around her, it’s hard to imagine anything here once housing any sort of life, or magic. 

“I used to live in one of these cities,” Finn comments, his gaze following hers. “There were thousands of us, huddled together in these great towers, trying to repair the broken systems. It was so stupid.”

“Why was it stupid?” she wonders. “If they used to work, maybe they could be fixed.”

“It was stupid because it was futile.” He tosses the crusts of his bread on the ground and kicks them, stirring up a cloud of grey dust. “There’s so many theories about why the machines died. People blame EMPs, or a massive technovirus, hundred of other things. But they’re all missing something. The biggest mistake of our ancestors is that they forgot the rhythm of the Earth. They tried to hold onto what they couldn’t keep. They built bigger and bigger towers and more and more machines, and harvested the sun and the ground to keep them running.”

“But life is about balance,” Rey breathes. 

“Yeah. After hundreds of years of growth, the planet needed to reset itself. Things live, and things die. Things grow-”

“-and they decay.” Suddenly, she stands. “It all makes sense to me. Why he’s been waiting for so long.”

“Why  _ who- _ ?”

“I’ll explain later.” 

*

He’s curled up around himself, halfheartedly stoking a smoking and sputtering fire when she bursts from the forest, panting for breath.

“Can you teach me?” she wheezes, far more undignified than she intended.

His eyes snap up, feral, unguarded. “Me?” he rasps. “Is Luke Skywalker not enough for you anymore?”

Her face falls. “There’s no need to be rude.”

She turns away, already cursing herself for being so  _ stupid,  _ and _ naive.   _ Of course he wouldn’t want to teach her, not after she rejected him and ran back to the family that he abandoned, and who abandoned him.

“So he told you.”

“Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

She whirls around, and snarls, “Stop creeping around in my head, and whispering things to me at night. It’s weird, and I don’t like it.”

“I’ll stop it when you stop,” he counters, poking the fire with a bit more venom. 

“But I’m not-”

“You’ve been screaming your magic into my head for the past week.” He shoots her an accusatory look.  “I’ve heard so much wining and pleading with garden vegetables that I’m about to go insane.”

Rey blushes, horrified. “I didn’t know.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know.” He takes in a deep breath. Some of the tension releases, and his shoulders slump. “Come. Sit with me.”

There’s only a half rotten log to sit on that barely supports his weight, so she chooses to squat down instead. The heat of the fire is a welcome relief from the pervasive dankness of the forest.

“So,” he starts. “What did Luke tell you about me?”

“He said your name is Ben, and that you’re his nephew.”

“So he didn’t buy  _ Ozymandias? _ I’m not surprised.” He hunches down a bit lower. “And what did he say about my magic?”

She shoots him a curious look, but his face is stoic and impassive. “He said your magic has always been destructive, dangerous even. He said that you agreed to live in the forest to keep the community safe.”

“Ha. I’m not surprised he thinks that.”

“So what really happened? According to you,” she adds. 

“According to me, my uncle gave me an ultimatum. He told me I either had to leave the village, or suppress my magic. It wasn’t really an option; my magic was intertwined with my soul. It would hurt too much to lose it, and it had become a part of me. So...I left.”

“At least he gave you a choice,” Rey responds bitterly.

“I remember that. I-” Ben puts down his stick and rests a shaking hand on the log, just a few inches from hers. “I’m sorry I didn’t do anything. I had just left, and I-I was scared. I’ve never been good at controlling my power, and I didn’t know what would happen if I went back. I’ve regretted it ever since. You were-you  _ are  _ marvelous.”

His voice is soft and enchanting, but the wound of her suppressed magic is still too raw for her to acknowledge. Eyes welling with tears, she stares resolutely at the fire. “I want it back, the way it used to be. I want to be able to grow giant trees and summon animals and harvest some  _ damn  _ vegetables. I want the Earth to be balanced again...and for that I need your help.”

Now she looks at him with tear streaked cheeks and an earnest gaze.  Trembling, she reaches out her hand and rests it on his. 

Ben’s eyes squeeze shut. His throat bobs. “Alright,” he says, voice rough and heavy. “So be it.” 

*

Days pass, then weeks. Every moment she can, she steals away through the trees, no longer afraid of the rot and the darkness. Her heart thumps with excitement every time she breaks through the forest into the clearing and spots Ben waiting for her in front of his hut.

And every day she learns something new, coaxed on by Ben and his unique brand of magic. Her first lesson is on meditation; they sit cross legged across from each other and just empty their minds of all thought. At first she thinks it’s stupid, but sure enough she finds that her magic can be more easily called upon if her brain isn’t cluttered with excess rumination.

Her second lesson is about focus. “The wand is a powerful tool,” Ben explains, “But don’t let it be a crutch. The crystal allows you to focus your magic on a singular subject. Sometimes that’s good and sometimes it’s too restrictive.”

“How so?” Rey delicately runs her finger along her borrowed wand, lingering on the glittering blue crystal.

Ben gulps. “Uh, well, if you want to affect a large area, sometimes wandless casting is the b-best option,” he stammers. 

“Really?” She looks up at him, brown eyes wide and curious. “Can you show me?”

He’s always eager to oblige her, whether it’s casting a spell that causes the trees to simultaneously drop their leaves, or simply making a gnat drop dead mid-flight. Despite his disheveled appearance, she finds that he actually takes a lot of pride in his abilities, and is always looking for an opportunity to show off. 

During her fifth lesson, on  _ precision _ , he aims a beam of rot magic with enough delicacy to sever the stem of an apple from its branch twenty feet above their heads. Rey laughs with delight and catches it in her upturned hands. 

“Would you like to share?” she asks.

He shakes his head no, so she bites into it and groans as the sweet juice, warmed by the sun, floods her mouth. “You sure you don’t want any?” she says through a mouthful of apple flesh. “It’s so good.”

“No, I’m fine,” he rasps, the tips of his ears tinged pink. 

Her tenth lesson is on power, and it there that Rey discovers something shameful about herself and her lessons with Ben, something that she’s toyed with but never quite admitted. 

She  _ craves _ him, whether it’s his magic, or his attention, or his presence. Her magic sings when she’s around him, and when he’s casting spells she can feel her own reservoir swell to meet his. 

This realization comes to her as she’s lounging against the stone walls of his well, watching him uproot and disintegrate a hundred year old oak tree with a flick of his wrist. On the surface it appears effortless, but the concentration needed is evidenced by the strain in his arm muscle and the thin sheen of sweat on his brow.

Once the ancient tree is dust before him, she rises, applauding softly. “That was amazing.”

He turns toward her, sheepishly. “It was nothing. I’m out of practice...I used to be able to-”

His words die on his lips when she reaches her hand up to wipe a drop of sweat from his brow, right before it drips into his eye. Her thumb lingers for a moment before her hand drops lower, her fingers trailing feather light touches against his neck.

He jerks away. “I-I need to go wash up,” he stammers. “Same time tomorrow?”

He retreats into his hut before she has a chance to reply. 

*

Her dreams that night are different. Now the amorphous limbs and skin coalesce into one solid person,  _ Ben,  _ his face soft and relaxed and happy in a way she’s never seen before. 

_ You are my destiny _ he murmurs against her lips before pressing them firmly against his own. Colours explode behinds her eyes as strong hands grip and caress her trembling flesh until she’s pliant against him.

_ We were made for each other _ he breathes. _ Two opposing elements rising to meet, destined to collide.  _

The feeling of him filling her is vague and unfulfilling, based only on her most private speculations, but it wakes her breathless and sweating nonetheless. 

She can’t even meet Finn and Poe’s eyes over lunch, and steals back to room as soon as the day’s work is done. She mumbles ‘female problems’ to Luke, who shuffles into the kitchen to put on the kettle and give her some privacy. It’s not a lie, not technically, but it’s so far from the truth that she feels a twinge of guilt.

Her heart is still pounding from her dream, if that’s even possible. Wriggling down into her bed, she tries to clear her mind, just like Ben taught her. Once she’s satisfied that her most lewd thoughts are under lock and key, she sends out tendrils of magic until she grasps something familiar.

_ Rey? is everything alright _

“It’s fine,” she whispers. “I’m just feeling a little sick tonight. Is it okay if we postpone our lesson?”

_ of course.  _ His next thoughts are soft and tentative.  _ are you going to be okay _

“Yes, yes, I will. No need to worry.”

_ is there anything else- _

A flash of pale skin and unfathomable fullness fills her mind and, in a panic, she throws up her mental barriers, cutting him off mid thought. 

The shrill scream of the kettle boiling pierces the air.

“No, nothing else,” she groans into her pillow. “Nothing at all.”

*

She arrives at her next lesson so flustered she can barely stand still. Surprisingly, the clearing is empty when she arrives, so she sits herself down in front of his firepit and waits, coaxing tendrils of grass from the soil to pass the time.

He emerges from his hut a couple minutes later. “You’re here!”

“Of course I’m here, I-” She frowns. “What are you wearing? And your hair?”

He’s discarded his ratty black cloak and is instead dressed in a tunic of soft grey fabric that strains against his chest. His hair is also different, styled and trimmed into waves that it no longer fall in his face.

He blushes. “I just- I went so long without seeing anyone that I didn’t realize how gross I looked.”

“You weren’t gross, you were just-  _ unkempt _ , I guess.” Rey nervously chews on her bottom lip. “You look nice.”

“You think so?” His face splits into a smile that looks dangerously close to the smile he gave her in her dream. “Thanks.”

Despite her best efforts, she’s an absolute  _ wreck _ during their lesson. Ben’s not much better; he accidentally disintegrates a boulder, murders a family of voles, and causes two massive ferns to rot into steaming puddles of goo before he announces, “That’s enough for me today.”

“But we’ve barely started,” she groans. 

“I know. I didn’t say we’re both done,” he says, cheekily. “I think it’s time we let you loose.”

“Let me loose?” Rey pushes some stray hair out of her face and frowns. “What do you mean?”

Bean gives her a small smile and struts towards her. “I mean,” he breathes, “That it’s time for you to break down the last of the barriers you and Luke constructed around your magic when you were young. It’s time for you to free the Life that flows through your veins.”

He reaches his hand up and brushes the last of the strays from her forehead. “Are you ready?”

Stories of winding roots, gargantuan spiders, crumbling homes, and scared parents scroll through her mind. What if she hurts him? What if she destroys the community?  

_ what if you never try _

Her eyes lock with his, and she nods. “I’m ready.”

She gets so excited that she reaches out and grasps his hand in hers. His skin is surprisingly soft, and his fingers dwarf hers in his massive grip, but that’s not all she notices. The moment their hands touch, the moss around them explodes in a puff of dust, the leaves melt into brown sludge, and a small knobby tree wilts and dies. 

Ben looks up to meet her face, his eyes wild. “I didn’t- I just-, no one’s ever-” More plants wilt around them, and even the buzzing flies drop dead.

He tries to pull away, but she squeezes even harder, holding him in place. She’s curious, has been curious ever since the first time she saw his gift. Luke said that Ben’s power feeds off of destruction, and craves the void left by rot and decay, but now that she’s managed to peel back the layers and grime and decay...now she’s not so sure. 

Still grasping his hand in hers, she pulls her wand out of her pocket and focuses. The tendrils of her magic reach in to the ground and root around for any trace of the moss and leaves and sad little tree that used to dwell on the surface.

And, sure enough, she finds them. 

She finds the essence of the moss in the free spores around her, and can feel the earth sigh in relief from the gift of fresh tannins from the leaves and cells from the flies. Drawing up the well of fresh life around her, she finds a fragment of root from the little tree and, drawing on the nutrients in the soil, she feeds the spark of life into that root and makes it grow. 

Eyes clenched shut in concentration, she focuses on the richness of the ground, lush and fertile from the many years of rot and decay it’s experienced. She focuses on the cells of the tree multiplying into hundreds of tiny rings around its throbbing core. She focuses and focuses and then- she lets go.

She’s so free, so unburdened that she barely notices Ben squeezing her hand tighter and tighter, until it’s so tight she starts to lose feeling in her fingers. 

“W-wha?” 

The words die on her lips when she opens her eyes and sees the bright green canopy over them. The tiny root, buried deep in the ground, has erupted into a massive, sprawling redwood tree whose branches loom over them protectively a hundred feet in the air. A titter from up high indicates that several birds have been summoned to the tree and have already taken roost in its crown.

Ben’s face falls. “It’s so beautiful.”

“-but?” Rey brushes his hand with her thumb. “What’s wrong?”

“But it won’t last.” His lip trembles. “I’ll destroy it like I destroy everything else.”

“And?”

Rey’s face is a shining beacon of light even under the shade of the majestic tree. Ben wrinkles his brow, lips curled into a small, confused smile. “Did you not hear me? What if I lose control and destroy this tree?”

“Then I’ll rebuild it,” she calmly responds. “Don’t you see? You were right all along. We were made for each other, to balance each other. There can be no life without death, and no growth without decay. Our mistake is that we’ve been trying to master our magic by ourselves, which only ends in disappointment. We’re _ two opposing elements rising to meet, destined to collide. _ ”

His face flushes scarlet. “Where did you hear that?”

She becomes aware of her mistake a moment too late, and her cheeks flush to match his. “I-I just thought of it-”

“You’ve shared my dreams,” he breathes. “You’ve witnessed my deepest thoughts.” 

He squeezes her hand in his, and reaches up to caress her face with the other. His fingers drift lower, to the back of her neck, and he caresses the skin there until she’s a trembling mess.  “Do you want this?” he asks, breath ghosting against her lips. 

She grips him close like a lifeline. “Yes,” she whispers, then presses her lips against his. 

He groans and deepens the kiss as the mighty redwood shudders above them

Her fingers trail under his tunic, tracing runes into his abdomen, and the birds burst into song.

He claws at her shirt, tugging it over her head with shaking hands while the ground writhes beneath them. 

She drags her tongue against his pulsepoint, palming his cock through his pants and, for a moment, the scent of fresh roses bursts into the air.

She wriggles out of her remaining clothes, and he pulls off the rest of his, and then they’re bare against each other, relishing the sensation of skin pressed against trembling skin. The entire world falls away as they savour each other: the taste of salty skin, the feel of fingers clutching soft, yielding flesh, the smell of sun-warmed earth and fresh green growth, the sight of a lover’s face, tight with anticipation and ecstasy.

“I’ve never- _ ngh, _ ” Ben stammers into the shell of her ear, his shaking hands gripping her hips.

Rey smiles into his shoulder.

_ neither have I _

Their joining is clumsy, nothing like either of them had imagined. He huffs with frustration when the angle’s not right, and she winces at the first initial thrust, but then she’s sliding down against him and  _ oh gods,  _ their hips meet with a chorus of moans that echo through the trees. She’s luminous above him, her hair a wild brown halo around her head and her face,  _ her face _ , is the most beautiful sight he’s ever seen. 

Head thrown back, she reaches down between them to stroke where they’re joined. Her walls flutter around him and he groans, the sensation over taking him like wave. “I-I-,” he stammers, trying to hold back, but it’s no use. The first throb hits him, stealing his breath away. He feels his magic pulse as well, sending a shower of needles that rains down on them from above as he throws back his head and lets out a shuddering sigh.

Rey’s laughing as she continues to touch herself, her hair now littered with green needles. Ben reaches up to brush them away as she sways against him, her body dancing to an ancient rhythm that makes his heart swell. She lets out a deep, throaty moan, and the ground erupts into a carpet of creamy white blossoms as she writhes and shakes above him. 

Still giggling to herself, she rolls off of his body and onto the flowers, her body glowing with pleasure. “It that what it’s always like?” she wonders, breathlessly.

“Probably not for everyone, or else the world would be an absolute mess.” Ben turns his head to place a kiss on her temple. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, you helped out too.”

“Not for this.” He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against her hair. “For trusting me. For coming back. For not running away when you found out how gross I am.”

“I’m not convinced that that dream wasn’t a group effort,” she confesses. “But you’re welcome. And thank you too. For believing in me.” She clutches his hand. “For believing in  _ this. _ ”

They lie there, sated and happy, until the sweat starts cooling on their skin. Ben props himself up on his elbows and surveys the clearing, which is now full of tiny, white blossoms, fallen redwood branches and green needles. 

Rey scoots over until her head is resting on his thigh. “Now I think you’re stuck with me,” she says.

“I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around.” His face falls. “Not that you have to stay, if you don’t want to.”

“Oh, shut it.” She pokes a bony finger into his ribs, and he winces. “You’re my destiny, Ben. My other half. I couldn’t be apart from you any more than I could stop breathing. Also, I need your help, _ badly.” _

His heartbeat quickens until he figures out what he’s referring to. “It’s the vegetables, isn’t it?”

She just laughs.

The sound of birdsong fills the air. The sun, now high in the sky, warms the air and dispels some of the dankness in the clearing. Rey can already feel the blossoms bruising under the weight of her body, browning and rotting into the ground, ready to feed new life. Smiling, her fingers entwine with Ben’s and, together, they gaze up at the majestic tree swaying above them, slightly battered, but still standing.  


End file.
